Financial Express: New Delhi: Monday, May 14, 2018.
There is a
necessity for a whistleblowers act to protect RTI users as the system has
“strategised to stall” free flow of information to disempower and stop such
activists, says Aruna Roy, who spearheaded the Right to Information Act
movement. She also feels that there is still a need to see the RTI as a larger
democratic and people’s constitutional tool to make power truthful and
accountable and put pressure on the political establishment, which it cannot ignore
or distort.
According to
Roy, the RTI has brought in an architecture where “we are enabled to change
from a culture of secrecy to one of transparency”. “However, the system ever
conscious and jealous of its power, has strategised to stall the free flow of
information, to disempower and stall RTI users. More than 70 of them have died,
for exposing corruption and preserving democratic rights,” the former IAS
officer who resigned from the service to work with peasants and workers in
rural Rajasthan told PTI.
Roy, who in
1990 co-founded the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), alleges that the
State has permitted criminals to get away.
“If there had
been no RTI, many of these tenacious RTI users would have been declared
terrorists, anti-state, or Maoists. But since its inception many thousands of
questioners of corruption and mis-governance have been able to use the RTI to
not only establish the need for transparency, but also to get justice,” she
says.
She suggests
that a whistleblowers act is the need of the hour to protect the RTI users like
human rights defenders. On the huge pendency of RTI applications, Roy says that
the commissions are now staffed mainly by former bureaucrats “who rarely”
impose penalties. “The users have to activate the campaign to lobby with the
government to ensure staffing and time bound outcomes. There are many
information commissions including the Central Information Commission with
vacancies for the commissioner’s posts,” she says.
“Some
commissions have not evolved a norm for numbers of cases to be disposed by each
commissioner. As a result, pendency has mounted in some states so that it will
take years to get a hearing. Obviously, over time the whole act will be
undermined,” she adds.
Roy has come
with a book “The RTI Story: Power to the People”, published by Roli and written
with the MKSS collective, which, she says, is an attempt to see history of the
RTI as it evolved with people and in their own words. “This is a people’s
narrative, and records their voices. They are democracy’s most ardent advocates
and important contributors. When history records, it is from the perspective of
the powerful and the ruling elite,” she says.
Roy asserts
that the RTI has belied all expectations saying it is an acronym familiar to
crores of Indians and 60-80 lakh Indians use it every year. The biggest
contribution of RTI, according to her, is understanding the mechanics of
governance, and de-mystifying its process.
“The logical
conclusion is that the excuses of the system for non performance are no longer
tenable and the information accessed, points most to corruption and misuse of
power. But once information is disclosed the big bottleneck is accountability,”
she says. That is why, she says “we need a basket of measures including a Lokpal
Act, to help us fight grand corruption and a grievance redress law to enforce
accountability and ensure that people’s concerns and complaints are addressed”.
On the drawbacks of the RTI Act, Roy says there are no time limits fixed on the
second appellate authority – the information commissions.
“The
selection committee for the commissioners is not independent from the
government and therefore the party in power plays a dominant role. The first
appellate authority has no accountability and therefore has most often become
an extension of the public information officer,” she says. Also pro-active
disclosure under section 4 has no penalty, and the implementation is tardy, she
adds.
RTI can only
help bring transparency and for a more effective democracy measures of
accountability and participation are needed, she feels.
On changes
required in the RTI Act, Roy says amendments are a double-edged sword.
“Peoples’ control over parliament and political parties is now at its weakest.
Progressive amendments can happen only when all, or many of its 60 to 80 lakh
users are involved in the process,” she suggests.
.JPG)
.JPG)
